LOCAL CAREER COACH HELPS ORGANIZATIONS NAVIGATE THROUGH THEIR OUTCOMES

Dr. Angela Swain is a business psychologist, professional certified coach and the author of “Kitchen Table Talks with Dad: 5 Simple Tools for Transformative Leadership.” Photo courtesy of Dr. Angela Swain
Dr. Angela Swain is a business psychologist, professional certified coach and the author of “Kitchen Table Talks with Dad: 5 Simple Tools for Transformative Leadership.” Photo courtesy of Dr. Angela Swain

Local Career Coach Helps Organizations Navigate Through Their Outcomes

BY TIA CAROL JONES
     Dr. Angela Swain helps organizations achieve their outcomes. She is passionate about leadership development.
She uses her experience and knowledge with one-on-one coaching, talking to business leaders to get to the heart of what they want to see and achieve in their organizations.
     “Sometimes, leaders don’t really know. They have a feeling, they have an idea, they have a perspective about what they desire, but sometimes they don’t know what that is, exactly. They know what that feels like, but they don’t know what that looks like, really. So, I help them navigate these unknown spaces to come up with what those true outcomes really are and how we can collaborate and work with their team to get there,” she said.
      Swain said what is standing in the way of people being truly successful are what she calls “gremlin messages.” Messages that pick at a person and tell a person they are not good enough, don’t have enough education or they don’t have what it takes.
     “So, the clients that I work with, regardless of their education or the level of experience, they have these moments of uncertainty. And, that’s the primary thing that gets in
the way of their success,” she said. “People have to define what success means for them. I think oftentimes, people operate within a model that’s not current to who they truly are.”
     Swain said a person should defining success not for who they thought they would be at a certain age and figure out what that looks like and what that feels like. Swain talked about IMAGES: Influence, Mindset, Awareness, Guidance
and Emotional Intelligence to how one handles Stress. She also talked about M3C Momentum Mirror Moments for Change.
     “A lot of times, I work with people who are high impact leaders,” she said, adding that she looks at what blocks are keeping people stuck. “It often involves who we thought we’d be now because it doesn’t measure up.”
     Swain also is the author of “Kitchen Table Talks with Dad: 5 Simple Tools for Transformative Leadership,” which is set to be released this month. She said she wrote the book, in collaboration with her father-inlaw, John Wesley Swain, Sr., a small business owner who owned Kimbark Liquors in Hyde Park.
     “One day in the kitchen, my father-in-law and I, as we always did, shared stories and he would just tell me all of these wonderful stories and had this insight into business, and
life, and parenthood and all these things,” she said.
     Swain said unfortunately, her father-in-law passed in October 2020, and she promised him she would finish the book. She said the book was in her head for three years, from
conception to production. She said the process of writing a book is not linear and encouraged other writers not to get frustrated with the process.
     Swain called her father-in law, who she lovingly referred to as dad, her Socrates. She said he would hold space for her to dream, allow her to be herself, as a wife, mother, caregiver
to her mother, grad student, while challenging her limiting beliefs.
     “He held all of that in one conversation, which to me was masterful,” she said. “It was that experience with him that helped me know that what I had to say mattered and my voice
needed to be heard.”
     Swain said the book contains five simple, adaptable tools for transformative leadership. She said she loves making what seems unattainable simple. She also is working on a
companion workbook for the book, as well as an assessment.
Swain said she wants people who read the book to know their voice is not just important it is heard, it is necessary.
     “I think oftentimes, particularly people of color, have this view that our voices are secondary. We often put our voices in contrast to the “norm,” whatever the heck that means. And so, I want people to never settle for an almost version of themselves,” she said. “That thing that wakes you up in the middle of the night, at 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30, to listen to that. It needs to be voiced whatever that passion is.
     For more information, visit angelalswain.com, or email at
angelalswain.com or Linkedin.com/ angelalswain – phd.

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